Achievement and Subjective WellBeing

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Achievement Motivation
their goal should be to increase production, they tend to feel unfairly burdened and
not particularly motivated to meet the goal. Second, effective goals are specific and concrete (Locke & Latham, 2002). The goal of “doing better” is usually not a strong motivator. A specific target, such as increasing sales by 10 percent, is a far more motivating
goal. It is there for all to see, and it is easy to determine whether, and when, the goal
has been reached. Finally, goals are most effective if management supports the workers’ own goal setting, offers special rewards for reaching goals, and gives encouragement for renewed efforts after failure (Kluger & DeNisi, 1998).
To summarize, motivating jobs offer personal challenges, independence, and both
intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. They provide enough satisfaction for people to feel
excitement and pleasure in working hard. For employers, the rewards are more productivity, less absenteeism, and fewer resignations (Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999).
Achievement and Subjective Well-Being
GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVEMENT
MOTIVATION Clear and specific goals
motivate the most persistent of achievement efforts on the job and in other
areas, too (Locke & Latham, 2002). These
women are more likely to stick with their
exercise program if they are pursuing the
goal of “losing twenty pounds” or “doing
aerobics three times a week,” rather than
the vague goal of “getting in shape.”
Similarly, you are more likely to keep
reading this chapter if your goal is to
“read the motivation section of the motivation and emotion chapter today” than
if it is to “do some studying.” Clarifying
your goal makes it easier to know when
you have reached it and when it is time
to take a break. Without clear goals, a
person can be more easily distracted by
fatigue, boredom, or frustration and
more likely to give up before completing
a task.
subjective well-being A cognitive
judgment of satisfaction with life, the
frequent experiencing of positive
moods and emotions, and the relatively
infrequent experiencing of unpleasant
moods and emotions.
Some people believe that the more they achieve and the more money and other material goods they have as a result, the happier they will be. Do you agree? Researchers
studying positive psychology (Seligman et al., 2005; Sheldon & King, 2001) have become
increasingly interested in the systematic study of what it actually takes to achieve happiness, or, more formally, subjective well-being (Lyubomirsky, 2001). Subjective wellbeing is a combination of a cognitive judgment of satisfaction with life, the frequent
experiencing of positive moods and emotions, and the relatively infrequent experiencing of unpleasant moods and emotions (Diener, 2000; Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002;
Frederickson & Losada, 2005; Urry et al., 2004).
Research on subjective well-being indicates that, as you might expect, people living
in extreme poverty or in war-torn or politically chaotic countries are less happy than
people in better circumstances. And people everywhere react to good or bad events with
corresponding changes in mood. As described in the chapter on health, stress, and coping, for example, severe or long-lasting stressors—such as the death of a loved one—
can lead to psychological and physical problems. But although events do have an
impact, the depressing or elevating effects of major changes, such as being promoted
or fired—or even being imprisoned, seriously injured, or disabled—tend not to last as
long as we might think they would. In other words, how happy you are may have less
to do with what happens to you than you might expect (Bonanno, 2004; Gilbert &
Wilson, 1998; Kahneman et al., 2006; Lyubomirsky, 2001; Riis et al., 2005).
Most event-related changes in mood subside within days or weeks, and most people then return to their previous level of happiness (Suh, Diener, & Fujita, 1996). Even
when events create permanent changes in circumstances, most people adapt by changing their expectancies and goals, not by radically and permanently changing their baseline level of happiness. For example, people may be thrilled after getting a big salary
increase, but as they get used to having more money, the thrill fades, and they may eventually feel just as underpaid as before. In fact, although there are exceptions (Fujita &
Diener, 2005; Lucas et al., 2004), most people’s level of subjective well-being tends to
be remarkably stable throughout their lives. This stable baseline may be related to temperament, or personality, and it has been likened to the homeostatic processes that
maintain body temperature or weight (Lykken, 1999). And like many other aspects of
temperament, our baseline level of happiness may be influenced by genetics. Twin studies have shown, for example, that individual differences in happiness are more strongly
associated with inherited personality characteristics than with environmental factors
such as money, popularity, or physical attractiveness (Lykken, 1999; Tellegen et al.,
1988).
Beyond inherited tendencies, the things that appear to matter most in generating
happiness are close social ties (including friends and a satisfying marriage or partnership), religious faith, and having the resources necessary to make progress toward one’s
goals (Diener, 2000; Myers, 2000). So you don’t have to be a smart, rich, physically
attractive high achiever to be happy, and it turns out that most people in Western cultures are relatively happy (Diener & Diener, 1995; Gow et al., 2005).